[Uemarasan]

I really dislike the current Japanese standards for male beauty. Soft, feminine, delicate, pretty, slender, harmless, non-threatening, cute, and ridiculously bad hair. Yuck! What's the point of being a man, then? Embrace your physiological difference! I'm waiting for this trend to be over already. Damn you Johnny's Jimusho! Damn you yaoi fan girls!

Give me masculine, rough, sexy, brusque, sporty, tough, handsome, charming, sensitive, intelligent, witty, gentlemanly. Hideaki Ito, Masahiro Motoki, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ken Watanabe. Now those are beautiful men!

Thank God Ryuhei Matsuda seems like he's toughened up for Kanikosen. What a waste of beautiful features if he continues to do that delicate-boy-lalala nonsense.

The list of women, though, is very much on the money. The Japanese still know what feminine beauty means, at least. I do think Ayu can be beautiful given the right hairstyle (she's beautiful on the A Complete cover). She should swear off full bangs forever! Everyone - unless you've got super high cheekbones - should swear off full bangs! Namie, I wouldn't call her beautiful. She's hot, but not beautiful. There is something not fully appealing about her face. She is pretty, though. Kumi Koda, in all honesty, is unattractive. Hikki has let herself go. She was beautiful during her Deep River era, but now she just looks sloppy. You don't have to uglify yourself to have people believe you're an "intellectual" and a "real artist", you know!

Oh for the days of Sonny Chiba and Toshiro Mifune! A time when you knew you were in perfectly capable hands!